title: Robust abdominal imaging with incomplete breath-holds.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Breath-holding is an established strategy for reducing motion artifacts in abdominal imaging. However, the breath-holding capabilities of patients are often overstrained by scans with large coverage and high resolution. In this work, a new strategy for coping with resulting incomplete breath-holds in abdominal imaging is suggested.
  
  
  METHODS
  A sampling pattern is designed to support image reconstruction from undersampled data acquired up to any point in time using compressed sensing and parallel imaging. In combination with a navigator-based detection of the onset of respiration, it allows scan termination and thus reconstruction only from consistent data, which suppresses motion artifacts. The spatial resolution is restricted by a lower bound of the sampling density and is increased over the scan, to strike a compromise with the signal-to-noise ratio and undersampling artifacts for any breath-hold duration.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The sampling pattern is optimized in phantom experiments and is successfully applied in abdominal gradient-echo imaging including water-fat separation on volunteers.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The new strategy provides images in which motion artifacts are minimized independent of the breath-holding capabilities of patients, and which enhance in terms of spatial resolution, signal-to-noise ratio, and undersampling artifacts with the a priori unknown breath-hold duration actually achieved in a particular scan.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Signal Processing, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.
authors.forename: Nadine
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Gdaniec
authors.forename: Holger
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Eggers
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Börnert
authors.forename: Mariya
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Doneva
authors.forename: Alfred
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mertins
mesh_terms: D000005:Abdomen / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D000328:Adult; D000465:Algorithms; D016477:Artifacts; D062485:Breath Holding; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods*; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D015656:Respiratory Mechanics; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity
keywords: abdominal imaging; compressed sensing; incomplete breath-hold; navigator; respiratory motion; water-fat imaging